Dan Markoff Wrote:
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> The locomotive Jackson
> h
> on=3&hl=fr%5FFRad at Neverland has to be the
> lamest thing I have heard. You would think that
> someone would have timed it.
>
> That said, it is a very nice private railroad.
>
> Dan Markoff
From what I have heard 3' gauge Crowns are notoriously difficult to set the valves on. I started my career on a 3' gauge Crown. The ports in the steam chest were not parallel to the leading and trailing edges of the slide valve. So setting the valves became a big trial an error adventure over multiple days. We ended up airing up the boiler, cracking the throttle, and moving the engine with a come-a-long until we got air coming from the cylinder cocks to tell us where the leading edge of admission was. Then continuing the movement unto the air stopped blowing to find the trailing edge. When we opened open the chest covers to see where the valve was and make some marks for future measurement, it made no sense. It seems to me there was no visible port opening. I was very new to all this, but it made no sense to any of us. But we continued on and ended with what were told to be the squarest running Crown on the planet. It was dead square in the corner and had a bit of a "Stephenson Shuffle" hooked up. We even got the thing to steam once we sealed up the bottom of the smokebox where all the steam and exhaust pipes poked through. Crown stuffed the pipes through holes n the bottom with no thought in how a smokebox was supposed to work, and made no attempt to seal the bottom. Once we did that, the blower actually worked and it made steam while running, a major miracle. We also rigged up a Pyle National K-2 dynamo to power the headlights and lighting through the train (pioneer at head end power). Crown said that was a bad idea as the boiler didn't have enough guts to do that. That worked fine too. We actually got a visit from a guy from Crown investigating how we got our engine to actually perform.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2019 11:03AM by Earl.
